
Z^C^^tS . 



Y.r. o/ 




ADDRESS 



DELIVERED 



BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF NAHANT, 






iEemortal 2Bap, 



1882. 



By HENRY CABOT LODGE. 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED 



BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF NAHANT, 

JKemortai Dap, 

1882. 
By HENRY CABOT LODGE. 



CAMBRIDGE : 
JOHN WILSON AND SON. 

©totijersttg $«ss. 
1882. 



^ a % S "\ 3 






rv 



June 1, 1882. 



Voted, That the thanks of the citizens of the town 
of Nahant be given to H. C. Lodge for his Address on 
Memorial Day, and that he be requested to furnish a copy 
of the same for publication. 



By 



EDWARD J. JOHNSON, ) 

EDWIN W. JOHNSON, \ Memorial Day 

T. J. CUSICK, ) Committee. 



ADDRESS. 



Custom and law have set this day apart and conse- 
crated it to the memory of those who fell in the war of 
the rebellion. It comes just at the parting of the sea- 
sons, the central point of the natural year. We stand 
here, with the months of snow and frost, with the months 
of alternating sunshine and rain, of spring and seed- 
time, behind us ; and as we pause upon the threshold 
of summer, we look forward to the days of warmth and 
ripening, and to those of harvest and fruitage. That 
memorial day should come at such a time seems to me 
a fine coincidence, and full of a beautiful significance. 
We gather to commemorate the deeds of those who 
endured the winter of our discontent, who bore the 
burden in the dark days, who sowed the seed when 
the clouds of spring began to break, and left it to us, 
for whom they did so much, to rest quietly in the 
summer sunshine of peace and prosperity, and in the 
mellow autumn reap the harvest which they planted. 
It is a day peculiarly fit for the loving and solemn tribute 
which is everywhere rendered to the dead. With rev- 
erent hands we lay our flowers upon their graves : — 

" Where Honor comes, a pilgrim gray, 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay, 
And Freedom shall awhile repair 
To dwell a weeping hermit there." 

1 



6 



We stand here for the moment shut out from the 
noisy, hurried stream of active life, with its myriads of 
eager, jostling, contending interests, which flowed by so 
rapidly yesterday, which will flow again as swiftly to- 
morrow, bearing with it our thoughts, our energies, 
our hopes and fears. In the quiet of this day, solemn 
in its meaning and purposes, doubly still from the 
pause which it brings in the rush and roar of every-day 
existence which lies before and behind it, we give our- 
selves up to the past, and to memories at once glorious 
and sad. 

"All is repose and peace, 
/ . Untrampled lies the sod ; 

The shouts of battle cease, 
It is the Truce of God." 

Last year I saw it stated in the newspapers that it 
was to be feared that the celebration and observance of 
this day were declining. For one, I cannot and do not 
believe this. It is changing somewhat in its character, 
it is true, but it is not fading. It is losing its personal 
quality, that which gave it birth, and with the lapse of 
time the element of mourning is slipping away from it. 
It is, in a word, becoming more impersonal. This could 
not be, nor would we wish it to be, otherwise ; for me- 
morial day is thus in the order of development taking 
on a broader and deeper significance. It is coming to 
stand as the annual recognition of an era in the life of 
the nation, and to represent the war and all the work 
and results of the war. For more than a hundred years 
we have celebrated the Revolution which freed us from 
colonial dependence, and the Fourth of July is still strong 
in our affections, and as I believe valued and valuable. 



So this day is growing to be the emblem of our recog- 
nition of that mightier revolution by which the Union 
was preserved, slavery destroyed, and true democracy 
firmly established. It is well for a people to set up 
these rare landmarks, in order to point out to their pos- 
terity the great epochs of their history. It is meet and 
proper that a pause should now and then be made in 
every-day life, so that we may turn our eyes from the 
present to the past, and in the past learn our duty to 
the present. Rightly applied, rightly used, such days 
ought to be full of instruction and of improvement. If 
we cannot draw lessons in patriotism and devotion to 
one's country from a day like this, whence can we get 
them 1 It will be a sorry time for us when we cannot 
spare two days in the year to the two greatest events of 
our national life, or when we cease to care for the great 
examples of sacrifice and devotion which have given us 
a country. Many years will pass, many centuries I hope, 
before we become so indifferent to the Revolution and 
the War of the Rebellion that we cannot give a few 
hours to learn the lesson taught by the men and the 
events which have caused those days to be set apart. 

It is well to pause in the hurry of small things, and 
look for a time at the great things which have gone. It 
is well for us, it is our duty, to now and then step out 
of the busy present, and stand silent and humble before 
the great memories of the past. Even as we come here 
to-day and turn our thoughts backward, the present 
drops away from us ; the mist of the years departed 
rolls away ; the veil of time is lifted around us, and we 
are again in the midst of the hurrying days and dread 



8 



events which filled those peaceful graves. Again the 
torn flag on Sumter falls, again we hear the call of the 
President, and again we see the men of Massachusetts 
starting forward to do their duty. Once more the words 
of the great war Governor ring in our ears as the troops 
leave Boston, and there comes over the wires the news 
of the bloodshed in the streets of Baltimore, — of the first 
battles and of the first defeats. Then follow the years 
of war, of trial and sorrow, of the waiting in darkness and 
doubt, which then seemed so long, until at last comes the 
emancipation of the slaves, the clouds gradually dis- 
perse, our veteran armies under tried leaders march on 
from victory to victory, Richmond falls, the war ends, 
and peace returns to mourn for the great statesman 
and patriot whose death was the crowning sacrifice. 
Again in thought we welcome back the brave men who 
have survived ; and then we turn aside to sorrow over 
those who have gone. But the years pass on, and time, 
the one unfailing consoler and comforter, heals the deep 
wounds and hushes the sharp cry of anguish for the 
dead. We no longer grieve with the bitter sense of 
personal loss, but come together in each year as spring 
closes to do honor to the memory of those who died in a 
great cause, and by grateful thoughts and service strive 
to render homage to those who achieved so much. The 
men of Massachusetts who died in the war need no 
trite eulogy at my hands. They gave their lives for 
their country. In that simple phrase lies all that can 
be said. The heaped up words of praise and admira- 
tion cannot add one jot or tittle to the heroic simplicity 
of the bare fact. Therein is condensed every attribute 



of sacrifice and patriotism. Man can do no more than 
lay down his life for his country. They neither need 
nor would they wish the vainglory of reiterated praise. 
We can say best, with our great war poet : — 

' ' Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth 

On war's red techstone rang true metal, 
Who ventered life an' love an' youth 

For the gret prize o' death in battle ? 
To him who, deadly hurt, agen 

Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, 
Tippin' with fire the bolt of men 

Thet rived the Rebel line asunder? " 

What in truth are words to such men, capable of such 
deeds ? By their works ye shall know them, and the 
voices that come to us from their silent graves tell us to 
look at the results they achieved, and learn from their 
work and from their lives the great lessons which they 
teach. 

As I have reflected upon what I should say to-day, the 
emptiness of mere panegyric — ever of little worth — has 
come home to me with tenfold force in the presence of 
this great theme. It has seemed to me that the most 
fitting service was to consider the purpose with which 
these men gave up their lives, and then, in the light of 
what they did and suffered, try our own short-comings 
in the path of public duty, and dwell for a moment on 
the way in which we could endeavor to be most worthy 
of the dead whom we honor. 

The object for which they fought was like all great 
objects, however wide and far-reaching the ultimate 
scope, at once simple and grand. They did not go out 
for conquest, as the southern leaders falsely said, in order 
to rouse their own people to a war, the object of which 



10 



at the outset had to be disguised in order to be borne 
by the masses in the South. They did not go forth in 
defence of their homes. There was no need of that. 
They had nothing to do but stand still, and there would 
have been no war. They had only to let the South 
alone, and there would never have been even an attempt 
to invade the North. They did not spring to arms in 
order to save their personal freedom, for their personal 
freedom was not in danger. They drew their swords 
for a great principle, and for that alone. They believed, 
and we believe, that that principle is vital to the best 
interests of freedom and of humanity, and for this lofty 
purpose they laid down their lives. They did not fight 
to free the slaves even. The irrepressible conflict be- 
tween slavery and freedom brought on the war, but was 
not its purpose. The South, at the moment when it 
realized that by the will of the majority acting in legal 
and constitutional methods slavery was doomed, deter- 
mined to sacrifice the Union of the States to their pecu- 
liar institution. The northern people would not have 
endangered the Union by a war to abolish slavery. 
They were content to use the slow, sure, and peaceful 
means of law, politics, and public opinion, to gradually 
wipe out that crime against humanity and that curse 
of our nation, property in man. But when they were 
ready to yield so much, to go so slowly in advancing 
the cause of freedom, they were equally determined that 
any attempt on the other side to dissolve the Union in 
order to perpetuate this foul blot should be resisted by 
all their strength, and the Union preserved at all haz- 
ards ; and this was the object for which they fought. 



11 



The integrity of the nation was at stake, and men never 
fought and never could fight for a nobler prize. Not 
only mere territorial integrity was assailed, but the best 
hope, the safest refuge of men of all conditions and 
creeds, was threatened with ruin. The great experiment 
of representative democracy and of popular government 
was in peril. Instead of one great nation, one undivided 
country beyond the reach of wars where alone men could 
find lasting peace and prosperity, we were menaced with 
a division into two confederacies lying side by side, with 
a long frontier, and representing two systems of govern- 
ment as different as darkness and light, and in which 
the longer they were parted, the more intensified would 
their diversities have become. A constant strife would 
have been almost inevitable. Instead of a system of free- 
dom founded on free and honorable labor extending over 
the whole country, we should have had it confined to the 
North, and an aristocracy based upon human slavery 
holding the South. Popular government was in sore 
peril of being curtailed and hemmed in by a system 
utterly and fatally hostile to it. The greatest free gov- 
ernment and the truest democracy in the world were 
staked on the event of the war, and bound up in the 
victory of the North. The magnitude of the interests 
involved in the maintenance of the Union, not simply 
to us, but to mankind, goes almost Beyond conception. 
Europe in general, but England and France especially, 
looked on eager to see the great republic fail, democracy 
break down, and a power which threatened to over- 
shadow them diminished and degraded. They longed 
to have two jarring and warring states, opening the door 



12 



to military rule, take the place of one united, indivisible, 
all-powerful, and peaceful republic. From all this the 
men to whose memory we consecrate this day, and men 
like them, saved us. They cut out the festering spot 
which had impaired the health and menaced the life of 
the body politic from the foundation of the government. 
They swept away the un-American system of an aris- 
tocracy based upon serfdom, and made our Northern 
system of a free democracy resting upon free labor 
prevail everywhere within our boundaries. This ser- 
vice was rendered as much to the South, which resisted 
it, as to the North, which upheld it. The benefit of 
the war, like the war itself, was not for a section, but 
for the Union, for the whole country ; and the peace 
which the war has given us must also be national in 
all its attributes. All this our armies did. They not 
merely tore up human slavery by the roots, which was 
the greatest social effect of the struggle ; but they made 
firm, constant, and enduring the peace and union of 
the States; and it is that union which is to-day, and 
which ever must remain, their noblest monument. 

Let us pause a moment to consider what the Union 
means, besides the great principles and the world-wide 
interests to which I have already alluded as bound up 
in its maintenance. First of all, the Union means peace, 
lasting peace. As one of the bravest men and most 
brilliant soldiers of Massachusetts, General Bartlett said 
in one of his letters, " We are fighting for peace, and 
that is what we long for." There is no contradiction in 
this ; it is the utterance of a profound truth, and one 
which, as I believe, was keenly felt by our soldiers. 



13 

They gave the deepest proof of it when, on the conclu- 
sion of the war, they laid down their victorious arms 
without a word, and, after four years of strain and ex- 
citement, returned quietly to civil life. That in itself 
was a great victory, and proved as much as anything the 
sound character of our institutions and of our people. 

The Union means also freedom in every sense. Po- 
litical freedom, because its maintenance involves the 
destruction of slavery, and because it means peace. If 
we had now two hostile confederacies, we should be in 
continual peril of war ; which would carry with it stand- 
ing armies ; and liberty in its fullest sense, and as we un- 
derstand it, cannot long exist side by side with a great 
standing army. Then it means freedom of trade. Eng- 
lish economists are always attacking our policy of pro- 
tection ; but they overlook the fact that we maintain free 
trade over a larger area than anywhere else in the 
world. This would have perished with the Union. 

Then again the Union means wealth and prosperity, 
and the largest opportunity for every individual and for 
every form of enterprise. We now have open to us 
every variety of climate, soil, and production. We have 
the great mines and cornfields of the West, the cotton 
plantations and orange groves of the South, the manu- 
factures and fisheries of the North and East. Think 
how much comfort and well-being all this implies, and 
how sadly it would have been curtailed if the South had 
succeeded. Last and most important of all, the Union 
means the spread of popular education, and the conse- 
quent elevation of the whole people. 

Take it from another point of view, the effect of our 



14 



Union upon the civilized world. There is no rhetoric 
and no exaggeration in saying, as I did just now, that 
the magnitude of the interests involved in the Union 
went almost beyond conception. The mind with diffi- 
culty grasps even the near future of this country. Our 
material resources are practically without limit. In 
an average year of good crops, gold flows in a steady 
stream from Europe to pay us for our exports. Last 
year 100,000 emigrants came to our shores. This year 
the statistics thus far show that we shall receive over 
a million. It is a great mistake to suppose that this 
vast body is composed of shiftless paupers. The low- 
est and poorest, the least desirable classes of the com- 
munity in the Old World, do not come to us. There 
is some chaff mixed with wheat, but, as a rule, broken 
men and women without energy or hope do not emi- 
grate. We get now chiefly the active, vigorous families 
of the middle classes, mechanics, merchants, laborers, 
and they come almost wholly from the hardy races of 
the North. We are a rich people, worth, if all the 
capital in the country were divided to-morrow, $150 
apiece. Yet our emigrants are worth, on an average, 
$100 each, and that shows very clearly that they are, as 
a rule, people of substance. We see from this, too, that 
the emigration of last year represented $70,000,000 of 
capital, and that of this year will represent $100,000,000 
besides the vast addition to the labor force of the 
country. All this is going on at a rapidly accelerating 
pace, and an empire is growing beneath our very eyes 
destined to be the greatest ever seen. Try this statement 
by its effects. Our cheap corn and beef pouring into 



15 



Europe, our competition in trade and in the men whom 
we draw here by better wages than can be found else- 
where, are breaking down the terrible military systems 
which are drawing the life-blood of the people abroad. 
Within a year there appeared in one of our reviews an 
article on this subject by an eminent German, Prof. 
Von Hoist, who has devoted his life to a study of our 
institutions ; and he there affirms just what I have been 
saying, and shows that, before American competition 
and American principles of government, the great stand- 
ing armies and privileged classes must be given up, 
or the countries of Europe will go to bankruptcy and 
ruin. We have beaten them in the production of the 
great staples, the necessaries of life. We are certain to 
beat them in the long run in manufactures and com- 
merce ; and, most fatal of all, in the competition for men 
we are steadily drawing, in ever-increasing numbers, the 
best elements, both mentally and physically, of the labor- 
ing population of Europe. 

Thus we are destroying by the gentle hand of peace 
and prosperity the military systems of Europe. That 
beneficent power comes from the Union ; and think of 
the good which it means to humanity ! Ought we to 
spare any effort to perfect the government of a nation 
doing such a work in the world? But while we admire 
our great material well-being, our growing literature, our 
budding arts, yet those things which should be to us of 
more price than all else are our principles of freedom, 
peace, and equality before the law. Can we have too 
great a love for a country which represents these princi- 
ples, and which is doing and can do such a work for 



16 



mankind ? The means may be prosaic, but are we not, 
by our tranquillity, prosperity, free popular government, 
and national well-being, saying to the world in practice 
what a great English poet was crying more than half a 
century ago, — crying in the wilderness when Europe 
was held down by the Holy Alliance of emperors and 
kings : — 

" The world's great age begins anew, 

The golden years return, 
The earth doth like a snake renew 

Her winter weeds outworn. 
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam 
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 

" Another Athens shall arise, 
And to remoter time 
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, 

The splendor of its prime, 
And leave, if aught so bright may live, 
All earth can take or Heaven can give." 

This is the dream of a poet if you will ; but it is no 
dream that we can help and are helping forward the 
cause of freedom and peace. It is no dream that we 
have a great mission and a great work as a nation, and 
that we must rise up to the level of our high responsi- 
bilities. All this to us and to mankind the Union means, 
and even more which I cannot touch upon, but which 
we all feel. That we have all this prosperity and peace, 
and this great opportunity to serve our fellow-men, we 
owe to those who fought the War of the Rebellion. 

By war and by lavish sacrifice of life and treasure the 
Union was preserved, and upon us devolves the task 
of completing the work so dearly paid for. If we would 
emulate the example and follow the wishes of those 



17 



who fought the war, we must strive by all the arts of 
peace to perfect the Union which they have preserved. 
Time has done much in this direction, as it always does, 
to heal wounds, to reunite warring States, to restore 
friendship and good feeling. Commerce, trade, and 
every form of industry, are doing still more, and the 
pre-eminent generosity and kindliness of the American 
people have done most of all. But all the scars are not 
gone ; the dying embers of strife are fast growing dark, 
yet they leap up every now and then, — more and more 
fitfully, it is true, as the years go by, but still from time 
to time into a hot flame. The old passions are subsid- 
ing, but ever and anon they flare up. While this lasts, 
the work of the war is still imperfect. "With us it lies 
to make 

"This land 
Clear through from sea to sea 
Believe and understand 
The wuth o' bein' free." 

We have overcome the South in war, we must now 
complete our victory by peace and good- will, asking only, 
but asking always, an honest acceptance of results. This 
work we must do strongly, patiently, and with forbear- 
ance ; and it must be done everywhere, and by all par- 
ties, until the strife is forgotten, and only the results of 
our great struggle are remembered, and remembered 
only to be blessed. We must finally obliterate sectional 
parties and geographical politics, for the war was fought 
to destroy sectionalism and make union perpetual. No 
party based on race or class prejudice, or appealing to 
either, ought to rule again anywhere in this country ; 



18 



and in my judgment it never will, for it is hostile to the 
very essence of American liberty. The end is not far 
distant, — the great end for which those men fought 
whose memory we celebrate to-day, — when every party 
and every shade of political belief shall have fair deal- 
ing in every State, north and south, east and west. But 
while we await this consummation, we must exercise a 
large charity and a wise forbearance. We must com- 
plete by the smiling arts of peace the great work achieved 
for the Union by the rude hand of war. 

I have alluded to the vast interests and the wide 
meaning of that Union for which the war was fought, — 
something so much deeper and more far-reaching than 
even the maintenance of certain political relations among 
the States. I believe these men who went forth to lay 
down their lives saw and felt, some clearly, some dimly 
perhaps, but all in a well-defined degree, the extent and 
meaning of the prize for which they strove. They have 
put these great interests which pertain to mankind, so 
far as human effort could do it, beyond the reach of 
attack ; and again it lies with us, as we revere their 
memory, as we honor brave men, and brave, unselfish 
deeds, to perfect their work. They have preserved and 
established on a firmer basis than ever the great and 
only successful example of representative democracy, of 
purely popular self-government. They have kept this 
great country united under one flag, master of a continent 
able to dictate to a hemisphere, and offering to all men 
the fairest chance there is for freedom, improvement, 
well-being, and happiness. To us they have bequeathed 
all this, and with it a heavy responsibility. It must not 



19 

only not suffer in our hands, it must be brightened, per- 
fected, and raised up until it becomes a model to the 
world. Neither wars nor rumors of wars come near to 
disturb us. We have great prosperity and lasting peace 
to help us in doing our duty. These men believed our 
government worth dying for; we should be false to them 
and to ourselves did we not prove it to be worth living 
for. There are reforms to be effected ; there is a con- 
stantly jealous care to be displayed in favor of just and 
beneficent laws. No great issues, fortunately, press 
upon us ; but there is plenty to be done, — vast inter- 
ests are to be guarded, and purity and efficiency to be 
cultivated. 

I fear that I deal in generalities, and those above all 
things are foreign to this day and to the lives of those 
who are gone, and to whom this time is sacred. In all 
the thoughts which have crowded upon me as I have 
reflected upon the objects and meaning of our commem- 
oration service, nothing has come home to me so strongly, 
nothing has appeared so full of a deep lesson, nothing 
has seemed to me so worthy of imitation, in the lives 
and deeds of our soldiers, as the element of reality and 
truth. It has passed into a truism that war is a stern 
reality ; but it is not that to which I refer. It is the 
reality of the acts, hopes, aspirations, and beliefs of those 
men who died in the war that I have in mind, and it is 
on that .thought that I desire most especially to dwell. 

Let us pause to-day for a moment to inquire whether 
we do our work for the country as thoroughly, as un- 
selfishly, as rigidly, as they did. Let us ask ourselves 
whether we uphold our convictions as unflinchingly as 



20 



they did, and whether we display as much public spirit 
and devotion to the public weal ; and, above all, whether 
we keep always before us their standard of action, and 
are as true and genuine in our lives as citizens of the 
republic as they. I wish we could answer all these 
questions at once in the affirmative ; but I fear that the 
insidious gentleness of peace and prosperity has relaxed, 
as was to be expected, the practice of some of the vir- 
tues called out by war. Peace does not demand the 
same qualities as war ; but it does demand as high a 
standard of conduct in all that relates to our country. 
It will not be unprofitable, and it will show us more 
clearly than anything else the virtues of our dead sol- 
diers, if we for a moment try to see where we fail. 

We are as a people too much given in ordinary life, 
and in politics especially, to substituting names for 
things. We are too ready to be satisfied with words 
rather than deeds. This does not arise from any confu- 
sion of ideas, still less from any lack of acute percep- 
tion. We are very keen as a people, we have abundance 
of common sense ; but we are also the most easy-going 
and good-natured people on earth, and this good nature 
is responsible for many short-comings. In private and 
personal intercourse, whether of business or pleasure, 
easy good-nature lends a charm, and we are too shrewd 
a race ever to sacrifice our business interests to it. We 
do not suffer ; on the contrary, we gain as individuals 
by this pleasant national characteristic. But when we 
carry this good nature untempered by a watchful sense 
of private interest into public affairs, then the mischief 
is afoot. We begin to smooth bad things over with 






21 

fine phrases, and magnify small things which are perhaps 
all very well in their way by describing them in big 
words. We are too apt to try men too exclusively by 
what they say, — not, as we ought, by what they do ; we 
let our good nature blind us to justice ; we allow our- 
selves to put forward men who are seeking to know 
what we think, instead of declaring what they think 
themselves, — men who wish to run with the crowd, in- 
stead of leaders who have been trained and schooled to 
their work, whom we should be ready to follow, and 
who can also be held, and would be held, to a strict 
responsibility. In all this the stern, watchful spirit of 
our soldiers is not so ever present with us as it should 
be, and the result is, that we get a number of things in 
public affairs which we christen with very fine names 
that do not in the least belong to them. Questions 
affecting the public welfare, questions of foreign and 
domestic policy, of trade, commerce, and finance, — these 
are the great and important parts of politics and states- 
manship. Are we not too apt to allow them to be 
pushed aside, and permit their place and honored name 
to be usurped by matters of small moment and by things 
of mere petty and personal interest? The American 
people have more sound common sense than any people 
in the world ; they know true statesmanship, and true 
politics, and genuine leaders, but they dislike trouble ; 
they hate to be exacting and fault-finding, and so they 
go easily along, and content themselves with fine words, 
and exercise an unending forbearance in public affairs ; 
and the result is often very unfortunate for the best in- 
terests of the country, which we allow to stumble on 



22 



as best they may, and trust to luck to come out right in 
the end. 

I am well aware that I seem in what I have just said 
to be going beyond the subjects of the day we commem- 
orate, but in fact I am not. The truest homage we can 
render to our dead who have served us so infinitely 
beyond the possibility of repayment is to follow their 
example, to cherish and perfect their work, to act as we 
know they would have acted, and would have wished us 
to act, in order to live up to their high standard of patri- 
otism and public duty. I have criticised the indiffer- 
ence and the misplaced good nature which as it seems 
to me warp our public life to-day, and I ask you again 
to consider the splendid reality and truthfulness of the 
acts and thoughts of the men who died in the war. 
They fought for the attainment of a great public end 
with perfect unselfishness and solely for the interests of 
the whole country. There was a grand simplicity and 
directness in their objects. No words were needed to 
disguise, to enlarge, or to give a false glamour to their 
purposes and their sacrifices. They went out to save 
the Union and serve the country, and they gave proof 
of what they intended by the hardships of the camp, by 
the danger and courage of the battle-field, by the hideous 
sufferings of Libby and Andersonville. They used no 
words, none were needed, to tell what they meant to do, 
they sought no idle phrases to hide a lack of meaning. 
They did their duty, each man for himself as it came to 
him to do, and they wrote their achievements on the 
pages of history by brave deeds, and left it to those who 



23 

came after to do them justice. They did not seek for 
place, or money, or power, by cajolery, or flattery, or by 
striving to put themselves always just in the wake of 
what they supposed to be public opinion ; but they did 
the work the country needed, and needed so sorely, as 
it came to them to do, — as they saw it, — and they did it 
silently and according to their convictions, and left their 
deeds to appeal in dumb and splendid dignity to their 
fellow-citizens for the deathless honor which history 
awards, and for the poor material recompense which a 
grateful country might see fit to grant. 

By the tests by which they expected to be tried them- 
selves, they tried their leaders. Men rose to command 
by what they did, not by what they said ; by their per- 
formances, not by their promises, or their explanations 
and apologies. Men were leaders, were colonels and 
generals, because they could lead, not because they had 
the shrewdness to follow ; and if they failed, the hard 
judgment of war was meted out to them. The man who 
led our soldiers through Georgia, the man who received 
Lee's sword at Appomattox, did not come there by in- 
fluence, by sympathy, by promises, or by fair words. 
They pointed to their battle-fields, and said, By what we 
have done, learn what we can do. On these grounds 
they asked for trust and command, and on these grounds, 
and these alone, we gave it to them. Truth and reality 
of hope and purpose, the test of work done and of 
victories won, — these are the great characteristics of 
the war time and of the men who fought the war. And 
shall not we take their qualities into public life and 



24 



public affairs as they did ? We cannot all be leaders or 
generals, but we can all be private soldiers ; and is it not 
in that humble rank that we find as high patriotism and 
public spirit as in any, and even greater unselfishness % 
Shall we not strive for their patriotism, generosity, re- 
ality, and truth? Is it not our bounden duty, if we 
would be worthy of all they did and suffered, to endeavor 
at least to live up to their high standard, and try our- 
selves and each other by it? No man who honors the 
dead, and loves this country as they did, can give but one 
answer to these questions. It is true that, thanks to 
those who fought the war, we do not live amid the shock 
of arms, or in any danger of it. It is true that, fortu- 
nately for us and for the country, we do not live in a 
time of great, burning moral issues, but in the days of 
piping peace and a rich prosperity. But are we on this 
account to sit down with folded hands, and be content 
with the fruit of other men's labor and sacrifice'? Is 
there no work for us to do ? It seems to me there are 
always many ways to serve one's country, even if it is 
not torn with the dissensions of irrepressible conflict, or 
rent in twain by the stern hand of war. Fortunately 
for us, the questions with which we have to deal are 
commonplace and dry, but they are also difficult and 
important. 

We must guard the Union and the principles which it 
represents, insuring to every man in all this broad land, 
no matter how weak or humble, safety, liberty, and equal 
legal and political rights. We should be basely false 
to our trust did we not do this. We must protect and 



25 



cherish local self-government, as one of the corner-stones 
of our political system. We must protect and purify 
the ballot-box, so that our elections everywhere shall be 
clean, fair, and above reproach. In our currency the 
questions of silver coinage and legal-tender notes are 
still unsettled, and are not without danger in the re- 
curring periods of business depression, when there is 
always a temptation to be dishonest with the public 
finances. The coinage of a depreciated silver must be 
checked, and the legal-tender law repealed, restoring us 
to the coined money of the Constitution. There is the 
tariff, which must be revised and simplified, the great 
question of a change in our civil service system, the 
reconstruction of our navy, and the revival of our com- 
merce. Then, again, there is the railroad question. 
We have built up a vast system of railroads, which have 
become so powerful that, unless we control them, they 
will soon control us. They must be dealt with, not in 
a spirit of wild, unreasoning, ignorant hostility and hate, 
but wisely, firmly, carefully, and after long and patient 
investigation. 

I have briefly touched on these points, on which, while 
reflecting men may differ as to methods, all agree as to 
the objects, and I ask, Is there in all this no need for the 
broadest and wisest statesmanship, for strong and able 
leaders, for earnest and devoted patriotism and public 
spirit, — in short, for the spirit of our soldiers ? Is there 
no room here to do good work for our country, in the 
same spirit as those whose lot it was to do so much 
greater and braver deeds \ Can we not emulate them 



26 



in a lesser degree, but in as true a fashion, by carrying 
on the great and unending work, which belongs to every 
good citizen, of defending, upholding, and improving a 
system of government which was saved at the price of 
many precious lives ? Surely it is our clear duty to do 
all this. 

I have tried to bring home the beauty and the patriot- 
ism of the lives of those who died in the war by apply- 
ing their guiding principles to the e very-day questions 
of public affairs with which it is our business to deal. 
To me, as to all of us, this day and its services are very 
solemn and very impressive, and it is our one wish to do 
fit reverence and homage to those to whose memory the 
day is consecrated. The last thing they would ask of us 
would be, as I have said, mere eulogy. The sacrifices 
of the war surpass eulogy, and make it all look tame 
and poor. But as we recount the great qualities of 
mind and character called forth in the American people 
by the war, the best way, as it seems to me, is to turn 
to the men of that day in the humble guise of disciples 
to learn and imitate. To follow their example, and do 
as they would wish, to strive earnestly and unceasingly 
for their patriotism, sincerity, unselfishness, and truth 
in all that relates to our country, is the best monument 
we can rear, and the best tribute we can pay, to our 
dead soldiers. 

Let us never forget that, as they died in a great 
cause, so should " Still their spirit walk abroad." Let 
us ever remember that they served their country best 
of all ; that the highest duty is to keep that country 



27 



ever worthy of their sacrifice ; that the noblest homage 
is to do as they did ; and that, to resemble them and 
be true to their memory, we must be of their spirit, 
— of the spirit which said, twenty years ago, to these 
men : — 

" We must forget all feelings save the one, 
We must resign all passions save our purpose, 
We must behold no object save our country, 
And only look on death as beautiful, 
So that the sacrifice ascend to heaven, 
And draw down freedom on her evermore." 



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